The
weather forecast for today was totally wrong and I therefore took advantage of
what I understood to be freakish sunshine and went for my morning bike
ride. This time, I did not attempt to go
into the Marina at Port Ginesta, being a law-abiding citizen of Castelldefels
and not of Sitges, so I turned around at the end of the cycle lane on the Paseo
and came home.
After my dutifully disturbing read of the
Guardian, it was then time for the sojourn to the shops. Masked, and latex gloved I drove to Caprabo
to get the ant traps and I attempted to do the rest of my shop there. Not going to happen, so I slipped along to
Lidl to finish off.
In spite of the fact that Lidl did not
have the 15-month mature Cheddar, I willingly settled for the soapier stuff and
thought that Lidl is basically a better store than the small Caprabo that I
frequent. But, and there is always a
but, there were things that I could get in Caprabo that are never available in
Lidl; Lidl is never a one stop store, and that is a real disadvantage: when in
lockdown you really do not want to visit multiple shops – you never know when you
may come across a Plague Child or three!
At the end of the shop, I was well and
truly knackered, and not finding a parking space outside the house because of
the bloody workers next door parking their various vans in OUR spaces was the
final, energy sapping straw!
I gave cursory help in unloading the car
when it was parked in the front garden space, and then the heavy lifting, and
the meticulous cleaning and putting away was done by Toni while I, literally,
put my feet up! [Are there too many
commas in that sentence? Ed.]
It
is almost lunchtime and we should be back in rain, if not thunderstorms,
according to the weather forecast. I
wonder what the weather is like in the UK, and I wonder how people have reacted
to the Blond Buffoon’s clear as mud instructions, suggestions, fugitive
thoughts or whatever his broadcast was supposed to be. It comes to something that, even after a
scripted talk by the Buffoon, ministers have to be deployed at once to explain
what he might have meant. For example,
who would have know that when the Buffoon uses the word ‘Monday’ he actually
means ‘Wednesday’ – perhaps our Prime Minister (sic) is working to an Old
Etonian (or Estonian, as my spellchecker wanted it) calendar where there is a
languorous two-day difference from the Proles’ week to allow for an elite
cushion of prevarication and indolence?
My British friends and relations are not
all of a type, but they are united in their contempt for the leaders who fail
to take responsibility, fail to lead, fail to be imaginative, fail to save
lives, and then treat us with condescension assuming that we have memories of
the same capacity as the much maligned goldfish! We have not!
On a Catalan television station that had
academics commenting on the Covid-19 Crisis, I noted one subtitle on a part of
the discussion had something about the “extreme recklessness” of one group of
nations in their approach to the virus.
Four states were listed: Mexico, Brazil, the United States of America –
and the UK! What exalted, socially
responsible company to be in! With
equally delightful leaders! God help us
all, what have the Conservatives reduced us to?
The fall out from the Sunday burbling
meander to the nation continues with reactions of bafflement, amazement and
disgust now augmented with further negative abstract nous being applied to the muddy
exposition that was supposed to enlighten us this afternoon.
When, by the way the Blond Buffoon going
to accept responsibility for being Prime Minister? He has a duty to appear before the press and
answer questions; he has a duty to appear in Parliament and respond, he has a
duty to justify his actions in a democratic society.
We know that he cannot be trusted live to
answer questions without there being an extensive amount of damage limitation
after he has waffled his way through questions.
He was too frightened to be questioned by Andrew Neil; he fled into a
fridge rather than be questioned by a television reporter; he has still not
appeared before the Parliamentary Liaison Committee; he has missed PMQs; he
prefers pre-submitted questions on Facebook to hard questioning from trained
reporters; how often has he actually been in parliament – the parliament that
he has tried so hard to limit, either by proroguing it for ILLEGAL lengths of
time or by simply ignoring it? Illness,
holidays and cowardice – anything other than facing up to what he has done and
is planning (if that is not too strong a word) to do, anything other than
public accountability.
And, in spite of the second highest death
rate from Covid-19 IN THE WORLD; in spite of the obvious U turns, the evasions,
the missed targets, the criminal lack of preparedness, he still has a
reasonable amount of public support!
I understand that, in times of crisis,
there is an understandable “rallying around the flag” effect, to go with the
authority that one knows to work together and get through this all, sort of
thing – but with him and the motely crew that he has gathered about
himself? Really? What, in any aspect of his past life, would
encourage anyone to trust or rely on this proven liar and opportunist?
The
rain-filled day has not materialized and so I will be able to go for my evening
bike ride as well, making the culmination of an excitement-filled day – you have
to take your pleasures where you find them in lockdown!
But just to make sure that I do not become
complacent in my joy, my computer upstairs has decided to half start. I get the Apple logo and the little line
underneath that gradually fills up to the half way point, and then it blacks
out. With all my years of experience of
the wayward ways of computers (I will not frighten you with the nomenclature of
the early version of Windows that made me the gibbering technological wretch
that I am today) I have turned the computer off and will hope that turning it
on again will make all things well.
As far as computers are concerned, I am a
simple, trusting, peasant soul when things go wrong. And I comfort myself with the fact that I
have two laptop computers (at least) that will keep me typing!
